EnGenius EWS310AP Neutron Series Dual-Band Wireless N600 Managed Indoor Access Point offers small businesses excellent 802.11n throughput and a decent, no-frills set of features. Just don't expect it to deliver the sorts of features enterprises or offices with very complex networks might want.

Access points (APs) are a vital part of a business network, making its wired infrastructure available via Wi-Fi. APs are like home routers in that way, but they also offer business class features and security, and they can also be managed by a controller for centralized administration. EWS310AP Neutron Series Dual-Band Wireless N600 Managed Indoor Access Point ($349.99) is one such AP. It's speedy, but it does not deliver as many enterprise features as other APs we've tested. Still, it's an excellent, no-frills AP.

SpecsThe EWS310AP is a square, ceiling-mountable AP. It ships with a T-Rail mounting kit, a ceiling-mount kit, and a mounting bracket. You should have little problem finding a place to mount this AP, as it's fairly compact. It measures 6.4 by 6.4 by 1.6 inches (HWD) and weighs 12.8 ounces.

On the housing are five colorful LEDS, for power, Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) activity, each wireless band, and the network status. There's also a pinhole reset button on the top cover.

The EWS310AP is a dual-band, 802.11n device. It supports up to 300Mbps at both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands. You won't see those speeds in an office environment, particularly with lots of devices connected at the 2.4GHz frequency, but the EWS310AP is plenty fast, as I'll describe later in the performance section.

Setup and Management InterfaceTo set up the AP, I configured a laptop's network adapter to the AP's subnet and connected the RJ-45 cable from the laptop's network port to the Ethernet port on the AP. I then pointed a browser to the default IP address of the AP and went into the management interface.

The UI is very spare, with no graphics of any kind, just text and drop-down menus for settings. The first setting you want to configure is the AP's operation mode. The device can be set in one of three modes: to create a WLAN from an existing network, the most common usage and the one I used for testing; in WDS AP mode, as part of a Wireless Distribution System for maximizing wireless coverage with additional APs; or in WDS Bridge mode, to connect two nearby LANs.

To handle multiple EnGenius APs for the WDS operating modes, the EWS310AP and other APs from the company are designed to work with the EnGenius EWS7928P PoE+ Wireless Management Switch, which I will cover in a separate review.

The EWS310AP offers a good mix of enterprise encryption options, including 802.1x RADIUS and WPA/WPA2 Enterprise. The EWS310AP shares a lot of the same capabilities of other small-business APs, including client isolation. This setting disallows clients connected to the AP from communicating with one another—for both security and performance reasons. Another common AP feature here is the ability to limit the number of clients that can connect to the network to prevent it from being overwhelmed. Better to have a few people not be able to get on than to have everyone's connection come to a screeching halt.

Another common feature in this AP is the ability to run a wireless scan of all other neighboring access points. The scan is very useful because it provides channel information as well as other insight into APs in proximity. You can set the EWS310AP to use channels that aren't so crowded with your neighbors' APs, thereby maximizing wireless performance.

As I clicked through the interface, I saw other capabilities that I like to see in APs, including VLAN support (needed for logically segmenting your wireless network for groups of users); support for SNMP, VPN pass-through, QoS and MAC address filtering.

One inconvenience is that you can't search for firmware updates through the AP's management interface. You have go to EnGenius's website, download the file, go back into the AP's interface, and then upload the file. This is a very outdated way of doing a software update, and even consumer routers generally automate the process.

With other abilities, such as Guest Networking and support for up to eight SSIDs, the EWS310AP should satisfy the wireless networking needs of most small businesses. EnGenius's device doesn't have as many enterprise-class features as other APs I've tested—Meraki's MR16 Cloud Managed Wireless Access Point is one example. With features such as real-time wireless intrusion protection and integrated policy-based firewall, a product such as Meraki's is better for businesses with mission-critical wireless performance and security needs.

PerformanceThe EWS310AP is the latest 802.11n AP that's come into our lab, and its speed shows how the 802.11n standard has matured. I used Ixia's IxChariot to test the throughput of the AP at various distances with a laptop connected to its 5GHz band.

At 15 feet away from the AP, I got an impressive average throughput reading of 127Mbps in my testing. When I moved another 15 feet away, throughput dropped, but still to a respectable 104Mbps. Before testing the latest EnGenius APs, the fastest performance I've seen from a comparable AP was from the Netgear ProSafe 802.11n Dual-Band Wireless Access Point WNDAP350 which averaged 88Mbps at a distance of 15 feet.

Fast and SimpleThe EWS310AP Neutron Series Dual-Band Wireless N600 Managed Indoor Access Point is an excellent basic access point, with a standard AP feature set and robust performance. Enterprises and businesses with complex wireless deployments should consider hardware from Meraki, Cisco, and Aruba, all of which have the features they'll need. However, for a small business that just needs the wireless networking business basics, the EWS310AP is an excellent choice. For its abundance of business features, our Editors' Choice for access points is the Meraki MR16 Cloud Managed Wireless Access Point.

Bottom Line: EnGenius EWS310AP Neutron Series Dual-Band Wireless N600 Managed Indoor Access Point offers small businesses excellent 802.11n throughput and a decent, no-frills set of features. Just don't expect it to deliver the sorts of features enterprises or offices with very complex networks might want.

About the Author

Samara Lynn has nearly twenty years experience in Information Technology; most recently as IT Director at a major New York City healthcare facility. She has a Bachelor's degree from Brooklyn College, several technology certifications, and she was a tech editor for the CRN Test Center.
With an extensive, hands-on background in deploying and manag... See Full Bio

EnGenius EWS310AP Neutron Serie...

EnGenius EWS310AP Neutron Series Dual-Band Wireless...

Get Our Best Stories!

This newsletter may contain advertising, deals, or affiliate links. Subscribing to a newsletter indicates your consent to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe from the newsletters at any time.